


Sweet to serve, sweet to cry

by some_stars



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-20
Updated: 2011-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-20 14:09:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/some_stars/pseuds/some_stars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How did it take him this long to understand what he wants?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweet to serve, sweet to cry

**Author's Note:**

> Contains discussion of consensual (and ultra-dysfunctional) non-consent. Title is from the Grene/Lattimore edition of Euripides' _Bacchae_ , translated by William Arrowsmith.

It's a thought Erik has sometimes, in the weeks since this began. Usually after, or when Charles isn't even around (except in the way that he always is), or when they're talking about something else entirely and he finds himself watching Charles's hands. They're not particularly remarkable hands--clean and neat, of average size, not so groomed as to be effete--but they continually catch Erik's eye, and now and then he wonders how he'd know if Charles were making him feel this way.

He wouldn't, of course, is the answer he always arrives at, before letting the thought pass. This time when it comes, though, they're sprawled in bed and kissing, only half undressed yet, Charles underneath him where he always seems to end up. The rut of their hips is still slow and without much urgency, and Charles's wrist flexes in Erik's grip when he drops his mouth to Charles's throat and scrapes his teeth over that particular spot, and when the thought comes to him Erik lets himself think it out loud, makes a sentence out of it: _You could make me want this, and I'd never know._

Charles goes utterly still, and the blast of pure distress almost takes Erik's breath away. It's wholly undifferentiated at first, just a loud rush of _no no no_ that drowns out everything else. After a moment Charles shoves himself back and tries to sit up. Erik doesn't move and he only makes it to his elbows.

"I would _never_ ," he says, staring at Erik with wide bright horrified eyes. "I'd never. I wouldn't, you can't think I'd do that to you. You _can't_."

Erik could be imagining the guilt in his voice. Charles is occasionally difficult to read, more often, it seems, the longer Erik knows him. "I didn't say you would," he says. "I said you could. I've seen you change people's minds before."

"When I have to, only when--not because I _want_ \--Erik, tell me you don't think I'd do that to you." He hasn't stopped projecting at all, but the waves of feeling are more distinct now. Anger and hurt, betrayal. A deep black chasm of something Erik doesn't understand. The beginnings of panic.

The secondhand emotions make his own pulse race, like they always do. He's still pinning Charles, still half-hard from a minute before. He reaches out one hand and touches Charles's face, thumb stroking gently across his cheek. Charles recoils at first. Then he leans into it, still staring.

"Please say you don't," he murmurs, thickly.

"I don't think you'd do it." Which he knows now is true, at least as far as conscious intent. Charles closes his eyes and exhales hard. "But you could," Erik says, and then--words falling out of his mouth--"you can." _You may,_ he thinks with the ghost of a smile, so as to be perfectly clear. Nothing he expected to say, but he's somehow not surprised to realize that he means it.

When Charles shoves him away Erik lets himself be moved. He leans against the headboard and watches Charles stand up and walk halfway to the door and stop. The thoughts rolling off of him are louder than a scream, but the only one Erik can make out is that chasm again, so wide there isn't any other side to it, no boundary line at all. How did it take him this long to understand what he wants?

Charles shudders, not turning around. "Stop it. You don't want that."

"You're reading my mind," Erik says, starting to grin. "You can see what I want."

He feels it when Charles yanks himself out of his mind. It's like tearing a bandage from a wound, or pulling out a tooth that's not quite ready to go. Erik doesn't try to hold back a grunt of pain, and doesn't stop grinning.

When Charles speaks again, Erik hears his voice without any mental echo or touch behind it for the first time since they met.

"I will never do that to you," Charles says. "Don't ever ask me again."

He walks out without waiting for any answer. Erik lies back and pushes at the edges of his own mind, finding them easily. Entirely alone, in a way that must, at some point, have felt safe.


End file.
